System and method for affinity marketing to mobile devices

ABSTRACT

A method and system for providing selected content displays to users of mobile electronic devices and more specifically to a method and system for broadcasters to provide a marketing portal presented in the form of displayed customized broadcaster content.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

None.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

None.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Technical Field

This present invention is directed to a method and system for providingselected content displays to users of mobile electronic devices and morespecifically to a method and system for broadcasters to provide amarketing portal presented in the form of displayed customizedbroadcaster content.

2. Discussion

To improve customer loyalty, retailers have long used affinity basedmarketing programs. As the delivery of information becomes moreimportant to consumers, many companies focus on providing or locatingcontent for users through the internet. The companies who create contentfor users are generally known as content producers and the companies whodeliver or find content from content producers are generally known ascontent providers. As users have become more mobile and new technologyhas been developed, users have a greater selection of mediums throughwhich to receive their content. As users are becoming more mobile, theimportance of quickly and reliably reaching these users has increased.

To improve customer loyalty many content providers use affinity basedmarketing through the internet. Internet based affinity marketingtypically uses customizable tools and specialized content. Whileinternet based affinity marketing is widely used, many mobile consumerdevices are not readily connected to the internet and have not yetdeveloped a system or method to provide specialized content or otheraffinity marketing tools directly to the user. For example, radiobroadcasters have long been able to provide simple information to radiodisplays, including song title, artist, genre, station identificationsand even in some limited contexts simplified versions of album artwork.Some radio displays include device specific displays, but generallybroadcasters have not been able to provide specific content thatincludes visually displayed advertising, specialized content, and otheraffinity based marketing information and content. Furthermore,broadcasters of non-internet provided information have not been able toindividually provide a displayed look and feel to users, such as throughbroadcaster specific skins. Therefore, while broadcasters have long beenable to visually and interactively provide specialty content andaffinity marketing to computers via their websites and specializedcontent players, traditional broadcasters have not been able to providespecialized content or other affinity marketing services to users ofradios, phones with radios, and televisions free from the internet asinternal access for many mobile devices is very limited. Furthermore,broadcasters have not been able to provide specialized content andaffinity based marketing services directly to vehicles.

Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system and method forinteractively communicating with mobile systems, and in particular withvehicle radios used by various consumers to provide affinity basedmarketing services.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In view of the above, the present invention is directed to a method andsystem for providing selected content displays to users of mobileelectronic devices and more specifically to a method and system forproviding a marketing portal for customized broadcaster content andaffinity marketing content.

Further scope of applicability of the present invention will becomeapparent from the following detailed description, claims, and drawings.However, it should be understood that the detailed description andspecific examples, while indicating preferred embodiments of theinvention, are given by way of illustration only, since various changesand modifications within the spirit and scope of the invention willbecome apparent to those skilled in the art.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The present invention will become more fully understood from thedetailed description given here below, the appended claims, and theaccompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of an exemplary radio;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a second exemplary radio display includinga touch screen with soft keys;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view of a third exemplary radio display with abroadcaster provided skin; and

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of various inputs and outputs for thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The present invention is directed to a method and system for providingselected content displays to users of mobile electronic devices and morespecifically to a method and system for providing a marketing portal forcustomized broadcaster content and affinity marketing content.

The system typically includes a broadcast station or signal source 100capable of providing content to mobile devices. The broadcast stationmay be any desirable broadcast system but is preferably capable ofbroadcasting through at least AM, FM radio bands, satellite radio, orvarious TV signals. More preferably, the broadcast station is capable ofbroadcasting IBOC or In-Band-On-Channel radio, also known as HD Radio tomobile devices such as vehicle radios and mobile phones capable ofreceiving radio signals. The primary purpose of this invention is toprovide specialized broadcaster content or other affinity basedmarketing content through traditional broadcast mechanisms and notthrough the internet. Throughout this application, the term “traditionalbroadcasters” or “traditional broadcasts” will be used and will refer tobroadcasts through AM, FM radio bands, various TV signals, satelliteradio broadcasts, and similar signals broadcast from a tower to a mobileend user and excludes content provided through the internet to the user.More specifically, the broadcaster must be capable of providingspecialized content to many users, without individual interaction withthe end user upstream to the broadcaster. Traditional broadcast systemsin this application will broadcast the information directly to the enduser or multiple end users without the necessity for direct interaction.In comparison, when a user obtains content through the internet, theuser's actions send a signal back to content provider and thereforerequire some uplink connection from the user to the broadcaster whichthe present invention does not need.

Until recently, traditional broadcasters were limited to provide data toremote devices such as vehicle radios to using RDS, also known as RadioData System. RDS only allowed for very basic text information as RDSdoes not have the bandwidth capacity for significant graphic content,such as providing album covers, backgrounds or detailed skins. Incomparison, the present invention by using IBOC allows for detailedgraphical displays by the broadcaster and has a greater data capacityfor many graphical applications. Information provided through RDStypically only included station call signs, song titles, artist names,album names and other limited textual displays. Any graphical displayrules were generally chosen by the end user's device.

A mobile device receives the signals from the broadcaster. The display10 of the mobile device is schematically illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 as avehicle radio, and in particular the display screen of a vehicle radio.One skilled in the art would recognize the present invention may be usedwith any mobile device capable of receiving the broadcaster's signal anda device that does not require communication from the mobile device tothe broadcaster. One skilled in the art would also recognize that themobile device may include multiple functions, for example receive andsend communication as a mobile phone, but also include a receiver oftraditional broadcasts that does not require sending of information backto the broadcaster or sender of information. The mobile device includesa controller 140 which provides an output to the display screen. Theoutput to the display screen may be a video signal or the controllerproviding graphic information to a screen through known method. In thisapplication, the term video signal or video output refers broadly to anymethod of a controller providing graphical content to a display.

If the mobile device is a vehicle radio, it can be used with any radiocapable of visually displaying the broadcaster's content. The radio mayinclude buttons arranged in any configuration about the display, asillustrated in FIG. 1, or in addition to buttons arranged about thedisplay, the display may be a touch screen incorporating soft buttons310 that may change functions depending on the current content display.Although not illustrated, the present invention may be incorporated intomobile phones that receive traditional broadcasts, portable TVs andother devices capable of receiving traditional broadcasts. For example,if a laptop computer is equipped to receive FM radio signals, thecomputer could be configured to receive specialized content from thebroadcaster, without sending any information to the broadcaster. Asdescribed above, if a computer uses the internet to receive data, itmust send some information to the provider of the data to ensure propercommunication, unlike the present invention. As radio and TV waves areextremely prevalent throughout the world, it is advantageous to providea system for transferring specialized content, including affinity basedcontent to an end user when the internet is not available buttraditional broadcasts are available. Although the broadcaster contentmay be provided through traditional radios, additional features may beavailable to the end user of dual tuner mobile devices capable ofreceiving at least two broadcasts simultaneously. For example, on a dualtuner radio, the user may listen and receive live content from onebroadcaster, while additional content, such as a skin for the display,downloads from another broadcaster. Once a skin is downloaded the usermay be able to use the skin of their choice, even though they may belistening to a different broadcaster than the broadcaster that providedthe skin. Of course, a broadcaster may provide rules as part of thecontent download process that prevent such cross use of skins, such aspreventing the use of their skin with other broadcaster's programs andcontent.

The mobile device may also capable of allowing the user to customize thedisplay. Therefore, if the end user does not like the broadcasterprovided content, such as a “skin” the broadcaster uses to display theirstation, the end user can use a standard skin preprogrammed in theradio, or other customized skins.

As illustrated in FIG. 4, the mobile device will receive a source signal100. This source signal can be AM or FM Radio, Satellite Radio, CD, MP3or any other type of signal. The signal is then processed through a datadecoder 50. As is well known in the art, the content is provided throughthe speakers. The present invention is directed to the display of thecurrent content as well as any specialized content on the display 10 ofthe mobile device.

The broadcaster or source signal 100 may provide content presentationrules 110. The display may have certain limitations, output rules ordisplay rules 120 provided by the mobile device manufacturer, or if itis a vehicle radio the vehicle manufacturer. If the mobile device is ina vehicle, other optional device, system and vehicle status inputs 130may also be provided. A display controller 140 capable of combingcontent presentation rules 110, display rules 120, status inputs 130,and if desired user preferences 150 to provide one cohesive visualoutput on the display 10 is included. Part of the controller's dutiesare to provide text rendering 160, background graphics rendering 170,other graphics rendering 180 and animation rendering 190.

As previously discussed, the source signal 100 may be any desirableaudio or video signal. However, in the preferred embodiment, the mobiledevice is a device capable of receiving radio waves from traditionalbroadcasters, such as AM, FM radio waves or satellite radio waves andproviding an audio output to the user. The source signal 100 in additionto providing audio output will provide content presentation rules orbroadcaster content 110, which may include specialized content oraffinity marketing content. A broadcaster may also provide content thatmay be used with other source signals, such as an FM radio stationproviding their listeners with a skin to listen not only to their FMbroadcast and provide selected advertisements but also allow use withother source signals. More specifically, the broadcaster may allow useof their specialized content, or provide particular specialized contentto the user, such that when the user selects other source signals, thebroadcaster's content is still used, if the user desires to use thecontent and the broadcaster allows such use. For example, a broadcasterprovides a skin for listening to the radio, but the skin may convert, asillustrated in FIG. 3 to a broadcaster provided skin for listening toother source signals, such as CDs and MP3's.

The data decoder 50 may be any decoder capable of decoding not only thesource signal, but also any visual content provided, or any customizablecontent provided. The data decoder may also be capable of decodingcontent presentation rules, which may be part of the customizablecontent.

The broadcaster or source signal 100 may provide content presentationrules 110. The content presentation rules may include text locations,fonts, sizes and locations for graphic objects. As part of the contentpresentation rules, the broadcaster may also provide specified contentsuch as song title, artist, genre, album and other textual and visualcontent related to the audio content being provided. Textualadvertisements may also be provided by the broadcaster, to be used inone of the exemplary customized content boxes 200. The textualinformation may further include station IDs or names 300. If graphicobjects are provided by the broadcaster, the objects are typically in acompressed form and/or are described by rendering rules, which minimizethe amount of content transferred to the mobile device. The graphicaldata may also be used to modify the textual information provided, suchas how the station identification of the broadcaster 300, illustrated inFIG. 1 is displayed in a visual format, other than simple text.Graphical information downloaded to the device may be a background, acustomized skin, album art, other content-associated graphics and anyad-associated graphics such as graphics for content boxes 200. If anyanimations are included, such as scrolling or flashing text, these rulesfor animation sequences and the descriptions or data for animationsequences may also be provided by the broadcaster.

The mobile device may also include a memory module for storing ofbroadcaster content. In some instances, the broadcaster may also providesamples of music or a free song that may be later saved as an MP3 by themobile device. For example, while the user is listening to one channelof an HD radio, the other channel may download an MP3 file having a songor other content for later use by the user. The memory module may alsobe used to store skins and specialized broadcaster content, so that oncethe broadcaster content is downloaded or affinity marketing content isdownloaded to the device, the device does not have to re-download thecontent every time the user changes the station. Therefore, the devicemay ignore certain data streams from the broadcaster such as an alreadydownloaded skin, and only update advertisement and song/album/artistinformation in the customized boxes 300, while the other content remainsthe same.

As the present invention may receive data and text without interactingupstream with the signal source, and not through high speed internetdownloads, the content provided by the broadcaster is typically simpleand is expected to make use of known mobile device display rules 120.More specifically, the device manufacturer, or vehicle manufacturer, ormobile phone service may provide specific display rules 120 and in someembodiments multiple display rules which may be selected by thebroadcaster. By having the broadcaster use many of the display rules 120provided for by the device manufacturer, the broadcaster or signalsource 100 does not have to provide as much information wirelesslythrough traditional broadcast mechanisms to the mobile device. Whileonly one set of display rules may be provided, it is expected that thedisplay device manufacturers will provide multiple optional displayrules that allow each broadcaster to select a set of display rules andthen use those display rules to present their specialized content.

Examples of mobile device display rules 120 include required textfield(s), rendering priorities, max rendering times, display size,minimum and maximum font sizes, minimum and maximum graphic sizes,resolution of the display, colors able to be displayed and any otherdesirable display rules. In some instances, the display rules may alsoinclude locations required for soft buttons, such as the illustratedtouch screen buttons 310 in FIGS. 2 and 3.

In some vehicles, the vehicle manufacturer has traditionally displayedvarious vehicle data on the display screen. As part of the currentdevice and system status 130, the display may also provide for vehiclestatus data and other data that may be interesting to the user. Forexample, the mobile device may display the current device and systemstatus, such as the frequency of the radio band, the current mode orsignal source, such as FM Radio, AM Radio, Satellite Radio, CD, MP3 orother. The current device or system status may be configured to providevehicle information relating to temperature of the vehicle, climatesystem controls, vehicle status and other data.

The user may also provide user preferences 150. The user preferences 150may include brightness of the screen, elimination of broadcaster skins,the use of a single skin, elimination of advertising from the display orany other desirable preference related to the display 10.

The display controller 140 then combines all inputs regarding thedisplay to provide an output to the display 10. The controller 140 maybe configured to give certain preferences or priorities to variousinputs. For example, the display is expected to give priority tonecessary display rules 120, then to user inputs 150 with broadcastercontent and content presentation rules 110 being last. The displaycontroller then outputs a video signal to the display 10, which wouldinclude text rendering 160, background graphics rendering 170, othergraphics rendering 180 and animation rendering 190.

In operation the mobile device will be manufactured having certainembedded display rules 120. These display rules 120 may include variousselectable options and generally govern the system functions andcapabilities. Upon the user selecting a signal source 100, such as an FMbroadcast, the broadcaster would be streaming constantly or in intervalsspecialized content 110 to mobile devices capable of receiving suchcontent. The mobile device would then use a data decoder 50 to determinewhat content was provided, for example, the broadcaster would providevarious affinity or customized content, which could include display ofpromotions, advertisements or other information in various test boxes200. For example, the user may have set a preference to look for anytraffic data regarding a particular highway, and the broadcaster mayprovide textual output regarding traffic status of a particular highway,which the device then grabs and displays. If desired, the broadcastercan provide as part of the content presentation rules certain graphicobjects that may be customized skins, or graphical advertisements. Thegraphical advertisement data may also include various animations.

The controller 140 then takes the content and renders it to a display 10by taking into account various display rules, 120, user preferences 150and broadcaster content 110. By using the controller 140 to mergedisplay constraints, such as the illustrated display rules 120, with thedesired broadcaster content 110 into an acceptable video output for theparticular system, the broadcaster is freed from addressing theconstraints of various systems, and more particularly broadcasting tothe display constraints of a particular radio. Of course, a broadcastermay send out multiple content rules, such as content rules for each ofthree different systems from which the mobile device may choose the bestcorresponding content rules based upon its display capabilities.

The foregoing discussion discloses and describes an exemplary embodimentof the present invention. One skilled in the art will readily recognizefrom such discussion, and from the accompanying drawings and claims thatvarious changes, modifications and variations can be made thereinwithout departing from the true spirit and fair scope of the inventionas defined by the following claims.

1. A system for receiving specialized graphical broadcaster content froma broadcaster, said system comprising a mobile device having a displayscreen and a display controller providing a video output to said displayscreen and wherein said mobile device is capable of receiving radiobroadcasts and wherein said display controller receives the graphicalbroadcaster content without interaction from said mobile device to thebroadcaster.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein said mobile deviceincludes embedded display rules and wherein said display controllercombines said display rules with said broadcaster content to provide avideo signal to said display screen.
 3. The system of claim 2 whereinsaid display controller gives preference to said display rules.
 4. Thesystem of claim 2 wherein said mobile device also receives user inputsand preferences and wherein said display controller gives preference tosaid user inputs over said broadcaster content.
 5. The system of claim 1wherein said broadcaster content includes graphical objects selectedfrom the group consisting of advertisements, animations, album art,station graphics, and affinity marketing graphics.
 6. The system ofclaim 5 wherein said display controller outputs said graphical objectsto at least one customizable box on said display screen.
 7. The systemof claim 1 wherein said display controller receives and outputs to saiddisplay at least the current signal source.
 8. The system of claim 7wherein said current signal source is a selected from AM, FM andSatellite radio sources and wherein said display controller outputs thecurrent frequency or channel to said display.
 9. The system of claim 1wherein said broadcaster content includes downloadable MP3 files.
 10. Asystem for receiving specialized graphical broadcaster content from abroadcaster, said system comprising a mobile device having a displayscreen and a display controller providing a video output to said displayscreen and wherein said mobile device is capable of receiving radiobroadcasts and wherein said display controller receives the graphicalbroadcaster content without interaction from said mobile device to thebroadcaster and wherein said display controller uses embedded displayrules to display said broadcaster content within the capabilities ofsaid display.
 11. The system of claim 10 wherein said broadcastercontent includes presentation rules.
 12. The system of claim 11 whereinsaid presentation rules includes desired locations on said display foradvertising, song information and graphical objects.
 13. The system ofclaim 12 wherein said presentation rules include desired location of thevisual content on the display screen.
 14. The system of claim 13 whereinsaid presentation rule is the location of each object on said displayscreen.
 15. The system of claim 11 wherein said display controllercombines said presentation rules with said display rules to provide agraphical output to said display.
 16. The system of claim 11 whereinsaid display controller combines said presentation rules with displayrules and device status to provide a graphical output to said display.